Beijing startup Sand.ai raised $200 million and is now valued above $1 billion, a sign that AI video tools for ads and social clips are drawing heavy investment.
Sand.ai, a Beijing-based startup that builds AI video tools, has raised $200 million and is now valued at more than $1 billion. The company announced the deal on Thursday. It is the third funding round Sand.ai has closed in 2026, and the total raised over the past 10 months now stands at $300 million.
Sand.ai makes software that creates video from instructions. The company says this lowers costs, speeds up turnaround and lets more people make good video. It has built several AI models, which are the engines behind such tools. Magi-1 generates video. GAGA-1 creates sound and picture together. MAGI-2 Preview is a research release that is open source, meaning its code is shared publicly.
For everyday users there is VidMuse, a paid service with tools for music videos, product ads and anime dramas.
This round is called a Series A+, an extension of an earlier funding stage. Chinese investment firm CoStone Capital and Shenzhen-listed tech company Wangsu Science & Technology led it. State-owned Pudong Venture Capital Group and an investment arm of Shanghai International Group also took part. Earlier backers iMPC, CAS Star and HyT Capital put in more money.
The round comes less than five months after Sand.ai raised over $100 million across two rounds. Earlier investors included IDG Capital, Baidu Ventures and Sinovation Ventures. A company valued at $1 billion or more is often called a unicorn.
Sand.ai says the new money will go to research and training of its video models, the computing setup that runs them, product updates and expansion into global markets. It also plans to release the official version of MAGI-2 in the near term.
The announcement does not say what VidMuse costs, which countries can use it, or exactly when MAGI-2 will arrive. It also gives no exact valuation beyond "over $1 billion." For business owners, the larger point is that heavy investment is pouring into AI video, and making ads or social clips could soon cost far less.
AI video tools are attracting big money, so watch for cheaper ways to make ads and social clips, but check pricing and availability before relying on any one tool.
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